Fallen Empires
by irishais
Summary: Who will guard the guards? It all comes back around to this: a sorceress, a knight, and a succession of witches. Sequel to Eden. Complete.
1. one

_Author's Note: This is meant as a sequel to "Eden." You are not obligated to read "Eden" by any means, but it would really, really help. Also, you can blame gietzeng, sissyHIYAH and horsecrazy2 for this in its entirety._

* * *

**FALLEN EMPIRES**

_-irishais-_

_one_

Squall stares at the monitor of his computer blankly, the paragraph of a status report that he has been trying to read for an hour blurring together in front of him, the words turning into liquid pixels melting down the screen. He can't sleep. He hasn't been able to sleep since he got here.

Rinoa sleeps, though, deeply, dreaming.

Esthar City was supposed to have been the safe choice, the _right _choice. Keep her here, where there are fail-safes and safeguards, a person he can trust.

Maybe the orphanage would have been better. Maybe not.

He has put her in a prison, essentially, of his own construct, and it is his fault that she is going mad. He can feel her in his head, a lioness stalking the corners of his mind sometimes, a bird with crippled wings, a silent (accusatory) presence.

_All I wanted to do was keep you safe. _

He had made a promise to do that, long ago, by the sea.

Or was it in space?

Or in a vast, gray nothingness where he walked forever?

Or was it Garden, on a balcony, beneath the stars?

_(I'll be waiting.)_

By now, Quistis will be waking up, preparing for her classes, he thinks, glancing at the clock. He hadn't wanted to include Seifer, not on this mission, but there are too few SeeDs he can use now. Too few he can trust. If he still had Zell, or Irvine or even Selphie, it would be easier on everyone. He wouldn't have to do this. Wouldn't have to leave her alone.

_(I need you.)_

Something squeezes once around his heart, a fist catching the beating organ just once, and letting it go just as quickly. He has to move on, has to accept these things, _has to_, because that is his job. They are his friends, but he has a thousand people under his command (an entire universe to protect) and no time to fall apart.

The clock on the wall ticks-ticks-ticks.

He calls up another program on his computer, activating the built-in video camera.

_xx_

She is held fast in the grip of a fever dream, incoherent images slipping in and out, blending together, falling apart, an explosion behind her eyes. She grabs fragments of pictures, but a breath sends them flurrying away, a shatterglass puzzle that will be impossible to fix.

There is an open door and she runs through it. There is a desert, a red-clay nothingness that goes on forever. Feathers tumble down from the sky in great torrents- when one lands in her palm, it turns to ash and leaves a searing pain in its wake. She sees the ghosts at the edges of her vision, spirits in black and gray and brown and yellow and coral.

(she does not see.)

She watches knights in a gray dust battlefield, where lightning streaks across the sky. The scent of flowers is overwhelming.

(_i promise_, someone whispers, and she can't tell if it's a man or a boy or a phantom.)

There is a woman in blue, tearing up flowers by the handful. _He loves me, he loves me not._ She has thorns embedded in her hands and her eyes are bright with moon-fire when she lifts her head to stare. Somewhere, a witch is laughing.

_xx_

Quistis wakes up in a tangle of sheets to the blaring of her alarm, and for a moment, she cannot breathe right. She exhales, inhales, exhales, inhales, slowing the frenetic pace of her air until she has it regulated. The rhythm soothes her, and she shuts off the alarm just before it reaches a fever pitch. The dream hangs in the air with the static hum of electricity, a storm that hasn't quite passed.

This waking ritual is becoming too familiar.

She shoves aside the blankets and crosses her bedroom in five long strides, crossing into safer territory, into the tiny kitchenette. The coffee maker is already burbling, set to go off when her alarm does, and within a moment she has a steaming hot cup cradled in her hands. The warmth and caffeine chase away some of the remaining tangles of the dream; the burn on her tongue is its own kind of esuna.

There is a soft hiss as the door opens, and Quistis looks up from the depths of her mug.

"Hey," Seifer says, looking like he's surprised to see her sitting there. He drops his duffel on the floor. "I thought you'd still be asleep."

She shrugs. "I have a class." Her words narrowly avoid being clipped off by a yawn. "I thought you were coming back later today."

"I caught an earlier flight." He looks bone-weary, a rough graze of blonde stubble along his jaw. He looks, honestly, worse than she feels right now, but he bypasses the temptation of coffee to kiss her. When he hugs her, she rests her forehead against his chest, closing her eyes for a moment. He smells of sweat and dirt and exhaustion, but she doesn't care.

"Is there more coffee?" he asks eventually, his voice muffled against her hair.

She smiles slightly, and releases her grasp.

When he turns away, his shirt is a sliver of gray in her vision and she catches the faint scent of something burnt.

_xx_

Balamb is empty during these first few hours, when dawn is just a pale haze on the horizon, so when Quistis enters her classroom, it's a bit of a shock that Xu is sitting in one of the front row desks, staring at the board blankly.

"Good morning," Quistis says, setting her materials down on the desk. Early morning visits are not Xu's style.

"I canceled your class," she says, stretching her hands out flat on the smooth desk. "I need to talk to you."

Quistis squashes the faint insulted feeling that brews within her. Xu is the acting commander. She can do whatever she wants, reschedule whatever she wants, Quistis' _hours _of preparation on this lecture notwithstanding. "What about?" she asks, keeping her tone carefully neutral. She knows. Xu knows she knows.

Her commander (her friend) stares at her hands for a long moment before she replies. "I need you to go to Esthar."

Quistis sets her datapad down on her desk with a soft thud. There is only one situation in Esthar right now. Only one thing capable of getting completely out of hand.

"Rinoa?" she asks.

Xu shakes her head. "No. Commander Leonhart."

It catches her off-guard. "Squall? What happened?"

"He's gone, Quistis. He hasn't answered any messages, and his phone has been turned off. The president hasn't seen him in five days; for all intents and purposes, he's left Esthar entirely. I've assigned you and Seifer to take care of this." Xu inclines her head toward the desk. "I've already emailed you all the details. You leave today."

Quistis nods once. "Of course."

Quistis is left in the silence of the morning, and her datapad pings to let her know she has a new message.

_xx_

_she drifts and falls and slows slows slows, breaking through the dust, clouds, ashes. in the distance, she sees a silhouette of a boy (man), slinking through the darkness. _

_thunder roars and the lightning leaves a scar in its wake. _

_ri-no-a_

_she walks, and crunches flowers under her feet, the petals shattering, glass illusions. (this is not a fairy tale.)_

_the field is vast, and she is very, very small. _

She curls inward, grasping her knees and hugging them to her chest, her heart beating fluttery-fast, a hummingbird's wings in her ears. The pictures are coming fast, too fast to count, too fast to catch. There is a sharp pain in her core, something clawing to the surface.

_No_, she thinks, _you are not going crazy. _

A voice floats through the door, piped in via a tiny speaker embedded in the wall. The room's acoustics make the voice wrap and twist around her.

"Are you awake, Rinoa?"

_I don't know. _


	2. two

_two_

They take a jet to Esthar, an uncomfortable, bare-bones craft where they sit in a nest of rigging amongst crates and cartons. She dozes to the hum of the engines, but can never get quite all the way to sleep, and a small part of her is grateful for it. There have been too many dreams lately, and she needs all of her wits about her. Seifer has always been able to sleep anywhere, any time, and is flaunting the ability right now, his head back against the nylon webbing as if it were a feather-down pillow.

She watches him for a while, taking small sips from a thermos of coffee she collected from the caf before they left. She feels bad for him, having to jump from one mission to the next, like he's a robot; Galbadia for a week, Timber for three, now Esthar for who knows how long. Sometimes, she thinks Squall does it on purpose, but she knows that there are very few people at Garden that he can trust right now, people who won't sell him down the river for a few gil and a handful of secrets. His emailed mission directives come encrypted to the highest level, and his personal communications nearly so.

It was supposed to be the best decision for everyone, and now Balamb Garden and its youngest commander ever are balancing on a razor's edge because of it. Send the sorceress to Esthar, keep her safe, keep her guarded during her recovery from an assassin's failed bullet. Keep her prisoner, essentially, in a city that she cannot leave.

But Esthar does not forget, nor does it forgive, and dropping Rinoa Heartilly back in their midst does not sit well with the natives.

The jet rumbles on a wave of turbulence, and Seifer starts, coming awake instantly.

"Go back to sleep," she tells him, her hands wrapped around the warm thermos.

He yawns and shakes his head. "If I sleep any longer, I'll sleep through the whole damn mission." She passes him the thermos across the brief span of space between their knees. "Do we have an ETA?" he asks as he brings it to his lips.

"Twenty minutes, or just about." When he hands her back the thermos, she finds he has left her only a scant mouthful of coffee. "Thanks," she says dryly, screwing the lid back on and tucking the thermos in the pocket of her backpack.

"Hey, it's not my fault you drink coffee like a girl." He stretches, and she can hear audible pops in his shoulders and spine. "Ugh. I was hoping for at least one night on a bed this week."

"I'm fairly certain the Presidential Palace has beds. We might even be allowed to use them." She can see Esthar's blue force field in the window, a honeycomb of electricity. _One time_, she thinks, _it's not going to open for anyone_.

But this is not one of those times, and the force field opens, one of its blue panels winking out and leaving a visible gap. Once they are through, Quistis lets out the breath she has been involuntarily holding. Esthar holds too many memories to ever be comfortable- Rinoa sent here to die and monsters at every turn. The city grows larger in the oval window just behind Seifer's shoulder, and she can feel the jet start to descend.

_xx_

Laguna is waiting for them in his office, in a rumpled dress shirt and khakis. At first glance, he hasn't changed much at all, but she catches it on a second look- a few more lines around the eyes, a crease in his clothing that makes her wonder if he simply doesn't hang anything up, or if he has actually slept in what he's wearing. The coffee cup at his elbow is absolutely fresh, steam still wafting off of it.

He gets up when they enter, moving around his desk to greet her with a hug. "I'm glad you're here," he says.

Quistis smiles gently. "It's always good to see you, Laguna. I'm sorry it had to be under these circumstances, though."

Behind her, Seifer snorts, faintly. She deliberately ignores him.

Laguna nods, running a hand back through his hair. "Rinoa will be happy to see you. With Squall gone, she's getting antsy. I think familiar faces will do her good."

_No, they won't,_ Quistis thinks, and isn't sure why the thought pops into her head.

"How are you?" she asks.

Laguna shrugs. "He's a grown man. He can take care of himself. I'd appreciate it if he would call or email me or _something_, but-"

"So, he hasn't told you where he was going?"

Laguna scratches his head. "No, no, I woke up one morning and he was gone, but Ellone was here, saying she had gotten a phone call from him, asking her to keep an eye on Rinoa for a couple of days. I thought he'd just gone back to Garden for an emergency or something. You know how it is. He left this with Kiros, though- gave explicit instructions to give it to you as soon as you arrived." He hands her a small silver flash drive, devoid of the standard SeeD property mark.

Quistis turns it over in her hands, running her thumb along the smooth plastic. What could Squall want her to know, that he couldn't tell her in person, or over the phone?

"You'll find him, won't you? I mean, that's your job, right? To find people?"

She tries her best to give Laguna reassurance, but her words ring hollow of truth to her ears.

_xx_

They have made a suite ready on the fourth floor, an elaborate array of rooms that seems almost as large as the entire SeeD dormitory wing. She sets her bags on a polished oak table; the wood is soft under her fingers, oiled to a gleaming sheen. The flash drive is hard against her thigh, and she touches the shape of it through the cloth of her pants.

"Big enough for you?" Seifer comments, causing her to look up sharply. He's leaning against the far doorway, his laundry-faded fatigues and t-shirt a stark contrast to the opulence. He doesn't blend well here, she realizes. He doesn't fit well anywhere, except at home, in their small, sparse apartment done up in grays and blues. "I think we might have to take the bed when we go, though."

"Don't get too comfortable." She unzips her laptop bag and slides the computer out, setting it on the table. It boots up quickly, reliably; the Garden logo greets her at the sign in screen.

She enters her password, a complicated mess of letters, numbers and symbols. There is a faint chime that lets her know she's gotten it right, and Quistis fishes the thumb drive out of her pocket, plugging it into one of the ports on her computer. A video file pops up on her screen, blocked by a password field asking for her general Garden login. She enters the information, and a second field pops up, asking her to verify her security clearance.

Strange.

"What kind of goodies did our dear commander give you this time?" Seifer asks, coming around to her side of the table.

"I don't know," she replies, keying in the information. The field disappears; she hits the play icon. There is a second of static, and then there is Squall, seated on a sofa in a well-appointed room. Judging from the lighting, it is late, too late to be properly recording anything, and the single light in the background does little to help the picture quality.

"If this turns into porn, I might have to kill him."

"Shut up, Seifer."

_"Quistis, if you're watching this-" Squall pauses, his brow furrowed. "Forget that. I asked you to come to Esthar to protect my wife. That's not the whole reason. Esthar's not safe for her. Nowhere is safe for her._

_"She's getting stronger. When someone tried to kill her at that party, it triggered something in her. I think-" Another pause, and Squall looks away, his profile cast in sharp relief as his head blocks the light. "Time's running out. I can feel it. I don't know how I can feel it. Ask Seifer, he can explain it better than I can. You're the only one I can trust to get her home safely. The only one I can trust to... if you have to- Don't hesitate." He runs his face across his hands. "I don't know what I'm saying anymore. God." He exhales, sharply. "I have to see if I can figure out a way to stop this from happening again. If she asks...I'm doing it for her. It's always been for her. Bring her to Garden. I'll try to be in touch soon." _

_A few seconds of silence, and he stares down at the camera. Then his hand reaches out, obscuring most of the screen-_

The picture goes black, and a second later, a second password field pops up, prompting Quistis to enter her security clearance code one more time. She glances at Seifer- he shrugs, and Quistis keys in the code once more. When the video plays, the scene is entirely different, later in the day, in the commander's office at Balamb Garden, mid-afternoon light streaming in through the big picture window behind the subject in front of the camera.

It is Squall again, in early-dawn lighting, dressed in his uniform. His bearing is ramrod-straight, nothing like the disheveled young man from a moment ago, who had sounded like he was seventeen again. There is a time-stamp in the corner, too, telling her that this was recorded almost three weeks ago.

_"My name is Commander Squall Leonhart, of Balamb Garden. I am recording this in sound mind and body. My lieutenant, Xu Chang, is witnessing this message. I am husband and knight to the sorceress Rinoa Leonhart. I am officially issuing the command A-66, to be enacted if or when it becomes necessary. The appropriate documents have been signed and filed with the International Committee for Garden Institutions." He nods, tightly, once. _

This video cuts off, too, leaving a black square on the screen.

She stares at the screen, her brow furrowed. A-66.

_Burn the witch. _


	3. three

_three_

They find Rinoa in the courtyard, drifting barefoot amongst the flowers. Her hair is long and loose around her shoulders- too long, Quistis thinks, for the short amount of time she has been away from Garden. Squall's adoptive sister, Ellone, is sitting on a bench nearby, a book in her hand. She waves a greeting, and gathers up her things, slipping out of the courtyard and leaving them alone.

Rinoa ignores them all, bent over a flowering plant. Quistis has never been good at identifying flowers; these are small, purple, with dark, dark leaves, glistening in the sunlight.

"Hey, Rinoa," she says, and she dislikes how cautiously she greets the other girl, like Rinoa is something to be wary of, not the girl that she's sat across from in the caf before over coffee and bagels, not the girl who asked her to be a bridesmaid in her wedding.

Not her _friend_.

"He'll be back soon," Rinoa says, plucking one of the small blossoms and holding it to her nose. "He isn't gone forever." Her voice is serene, peaceful. She turns to face Quistis-

_moon-fire burning in her eyes-_

and holds out the small purple flower, tucking it behind Quistis' ear. Her hand leaves a trail of heat in its wake as she brushes Quistis' cheek, and it takes the sensation a second to fade.

"There." Rinoa steps back to admire the effect. "Don't you look lovely?" She looks beyond Quistis, to Seifer, who is hovering around the glass doors to the courtyard. "Tell her she's beautiful," she orders him.

Seifer doesn't say anything, and Rinoa doesn't seem to mind. Strange, for her. Normally she would wheedle and plead and cajole into getting people to do what she wanted- she is _so _good at it, so good at getting people to say yes to whatever she wants.

The implications of that skill unfold in the back of Quistis' mind.

"Rinoa," she says, "we're going to take you back to Garden. Back to Squall. He sent us to get you."

The corners of Rinoa's mouth curve up, just a fraction. "I could've taken the train."

"Squall just wants us to keep an eye on you while he takes care of some things. He wants us to protect you."

Rinoa touches her stomach, splaying her fingers across the front of her yellow sweater. "Protect me," she muses. "From what?"

_xx_

_This is wrong_, he thinks, the second they step into the courtyard and Rinoa is there, a willowy thin spectre with her hair hanging around her shoulders in waves and curls. He doesn't like the subtle whisper of magic in the air, something wild, something mad. He knows it too well, and when Rinoa touches Quistis, he involuntarily steps forward to stop her.

"Tell her she looks beautiful," Rinoa says, and her voice is laced with that tingling command that makes every nerve in his body stand at attention. _Obey_, she says, but that's not her, that's not Rinoa.

He says nothing.

"_-I am recording this in sound mind and body-" _

"_-ask Seifer, he can explain it better than I can-" _

Quistis is reassuring her that they are there for Rinoa's protection.

_Protect me from what_?

He doesn't like the way she smiles, the way something glints in her eyes.

_From what? _

_You'll protect me, won't you? _

_xx_

_This isn't going to end well, _he thinks much later that evening, as they are getting ready for bed. He tells Quistis as much. "It's bullshit," is actually what he calls it, after he spits a mouthful of toothpaste into the sink. Not his finest description, but it's the best word he can think of to describe it. He can't believe Squall would just up and leave Rinoa like this; Squall might be a _moron_, but even he's not that stupid.

"I'm sure he has his reasons," his girlfriend says as he shuts off the faucet.

"Sure. Run away before he has to kill her. Good reason."

Quistis yanks an oversized t-shirt down over her head and regards him. "Do you think he would really run away from her?"

Seifer shrugs, and spits the mouthful of water he's swishing around out. "That's exactly what it looks like to me." He rinses his toothbrush off and pitches it back into his toiletry kit. "He can't face what he has to do and he sends us to do it for him."

"I don't think that's it," Quistis says softly. "It looks like that, but Squall's stronger than that. He would do what needed to be done. She needs him. He wouldn't run from her like this." She looks off, elsewhere into the room. Her expression is distant- she looks like she did years and years ago, when she would get all moony-eyed over Puberty Boy.

He flips the switch to the light, and crosses to sit on the edge of the bed next to her. "What?" he asks, finally, when she doesn't say anything for the longest time.

"I was just thinking," she says."

"I can see that."

"Ass."

He shrugs. "Yeah, well, when you've got the skills..."

She chuckles, a few beats of laughter. He brushes his hand against her back, and she leans into him, her head resting on his shoulder, her hair dull-gold in the dimness.

"I was thinking," she says, and she is choosing her words precisely, an exhausting habit of hers, "about what you would have done."

He stills.

"You don't have to tell me," she rushes on. "I mean, if you don't want to."

_(Call me a young revolutionary.)_

He remembers the searing heat in his heart when she let him go, an explosion that he thought would tear him up from the inside out. He remembers running through clouds and castles. He remembers waking up in a quarry in the middle of nowhere, alone.

"I would've followed her into death," he says finally, because it's the truth. He owes her that much, after all these years.

(He will not lie to her, not after all he's done.)

She sighs.

Later, in the darkness, he lies there and inhales, and he can still smell a lingering floral scent.

_Tell her. _

_Do it. _

_xx_

She finds herself standing in the middle of the hallway, with no recollection about how she got out of bed.

The carpet is soft under her feet, and she takes an experimental step forward. Her foot touches solid ground- _not clouds, not flowers, not red dust desert- _and she takes another step. Stops. Holds her hands out in front of her.

They don't melt, and that's a good sign. Squall told her that once: _If they're not melting, you're not dreaming. _

She isn't dreaming.

Rinoa takes one more step, then another, then another. The mansion is silent in the witching hours, and she stops in front of the next door. She gives the knob an experimental twist. It gives under her hand. It isn't locked.

She slips in through the narrow open space she has created, and she is in darkness again, only vague shapes of furniture giving hints to the layout of the room.

She walks, slowly, silently. The floor here is silken wood, cool against the soles of her feet. She hears breathing, two sets of lungs, exhaling, inhaling, rhythms never quite matching. She shouldn't be here.

The lighter breath hitches, exhales a half-word. _Sei-_

Dreaming.

(But she isn't dreaming.)

She drifts forward, gliding across smooth wood to soft carpet, pausing in the doorway.

She shouldn't be here.

-_a girl in blue in a field of violent color, ripping up flowers by the handful-_

_Rinoa? _

In sleep, Quistis is defenseless.

_Yes, _something whispers.

She feels it, a coursing river beneath her friend's skin. Magic, magic.

Quistis shifts, rolls onto her back, murmurs something incoherent.

Rinoa leans forward, hair falling in a thick curtain around her face. She reaches out, her fingertips scant millimeters away from Quistis' smooth, perfect skin. She traces the contours of Quistis' cheekbone without quite touching.

_Yesyesyes. _

"What are you doing?"

She jerks her hand back, but Seifer is snakebite-quick, snaring her wrist before she can _runrunrun_.

"_Sleep_," she whispers, and the spell hits him hard in the chest, sinking beneath his skin. His eyes open wide for a half second, her name hanging on his lips- _Rin-_ and he drops, slumping across Quistis.

She flees.

_xx_

Quistis wakes at the impact, torn out of her dream. She had been falling, falling, falling-

Seifer is draped across her, awkwardly, his head against her belly and his arm hanging off the bed, as if he were reaching for something, and Quistis hears the footfalls of someone running away.

She calls his name, several times, but he is dead weight against her. She fumbles for his pulse and finds it steady, regular. _A sleep spell? _

There are only three people here who can do that spell, and two are still in this room.

With a grunt and some effort, she rolls Seifer off of her, then flings the blanket aside, hitting the ground running.

"Rinoa!" she shouts, and she very aware of how loud she shouts in the silence. The woman stops at the far end of the hallway, and when Quistis finally catches up to her, Rinoa is trembling. When Quistis reaches to touch her shoulder, Rinoa flinches away, crossing her arms in front of her.

"I'm _sorry_," Rinoa says desperately. "I didn't mean- I couldn't stop it-"

"It's alright," Quistis finds herself saying. "It's alright." Her tone is soft, reassuring. "I understand."

"_No_!" Rinoa shrieks. "No, you _don't. _No one does, no one understands what's going on. I can't stop it. I wake up and I don't know if I'm still dreaming. The rooms are shrinking around me and all I can hear is this _voice _inside of me, telling me to do awful things-" _Things_ breaks into a sob and the word is half-lost with it. "I don't know what I'm saying half the time, and the other half, I don't understand it!"

_I don't know what I'm saying. God._

Squall's voice echoes in her mind, and Quistis pictures him, slouched in front of his computer.

Rinoa stands there, sobbing, and for once, Quistis has absolutely no idea what to do.


	4. four

_four_

He can feel her panic boiling over, exploding across the universe, and he folds in on himself with it.

_No, _Squall thinks frantically, _I need more time. Just a little more time!_

But the clock is tick-tick-ticking down, and she _needs_ him. He can resist her pull no more than he can resist the need to breathe- he's doing it now, even, when her terror threatens to smother him, sucking in wispy-thin streams of air, trying to fill his lungs.

_help me. _

_save me. _

Seven days. That's all it was supposed to take, they told him, when he arrived here (six)five days ago.

(fourthreetwo)

He doesn't know if either of them will make it that long.

_xx_

The entire drive to the airport the next morning is spent in total silence.

Rinoa sits between them, silent, staring down at her hands clenched in her lap. There isn't anything to say, she knows. She can feel Quistis' anxiety, expecting monsters around every turn. She can feel Seifer's anger, radiating off of him in thick ropy waves. She had _tried _to apologize over breakfast, while he was draining a third cup of coffee, but he had simply ignored her.

It will be a six hour flight to Garden, she knows, taken on one of the organization's high-speed crafts. It will probably be spent in equally oppressive silence; suddenly, she wishes Ellone could have come, that she didn't have things of her own to attend to in Esthar. Squall's sister is quiet, peaceful, serene, easy to ground herself in. Most of all, Ellone _knows_, knows what it's like to lose control and _invade _people.

Rinoa unfurls her fingers, splaying them across the fabric of her skirt. The rings on her left hand gleam in the morning light.

_Someone talk to me_, she wants to say, _someone help me. _

But the only person who can help her is gone, disappeared in the night. He left her with a gentle kiss upon her brow and a slightly squashed impression in his pillow. Is there a promise in that?

_promise me_

She isn't sure anymore. She isn't sure of anything anymore, only that most of the time, she doesn't recognize the face in the mirror-

_-horns and stripes of red like blood and the rushing hard beating of wings. _

_Her hands are claws, her feet lion's paws. _

_She is a monster. _

Rinoa squeezes her eyes shut, hard, and when she opens them, there is pretty pink nail polish and pale gold rings and the silky floral fabric of her skirt next to the close-knit weave of Quistis' black pants, next to the rough, worn texture of Seifer's jeans.

She doesn't belong here. She doesn't belong anywhere.

_Tick-tick-tock-tick-tick. _

_I am not going crazy,_ she tells herself, and it's only when Quistis touches the back of Rinoa's hand gently that she is aware that she might have said that out loud.

_xx_

Their arrival at Balamb Garden is heralded with mostly silence and suspicious glances. Xu is waiting for Quistis outside of her dorm, blocking the keypad just enough that Quistis can't enter her access code.

"I wish it didn't have to be like this," Xu says, when Quistis stops a foot away. "I need to make sure that Garden's protected."

There's a junctioned SeeD every hundred feet, it seems. Quistis can see another one just down the hall, in his crisp uniform. She doesn't even have to use Scan on Xu to know how many spells and GFs her friend has stuffed in her head. Garden is heavy with the force of paramagic; it is overwhelming, and the air is practically humming with the energy of it.

"It's what needs to be done," she replies, because it's what has to be said.

Xu nods once, crisply. "I'll expect both reports within the next twenty-four hours."

_Anything can happen in twenty-four hours_, Quistis wants to say, but she doesn't. Instead, she grabs Xu's arm before the other woman can walk away. "Have you heard from Squall?"

"No. Not yet." Xu sighs. "When he goes to ground, he's certainly gone."

_He'll be back._

Rinoa, sweet and serene. Rinoa, with her bare feet and tangled hair. Rinoa with her flowers and her commands and a sleep spell slipping from her grasp.

_I'm not going crazy. _

She punches in her door code, then steps inside her room. Seifer is there and gone, she realizes, his unpacked bag carelessly dropped on the bed and Hyperion missing from its open case. He's probably gone to the training center to rip through the latest batch of monsters.

Quistis doesn't blame him.

_xx_

He slices through Grats like tissue paper- _when will we get some real monsters in here?- _and follows the sound of the T-Rexaur roars, ignoring the path and plunging through the faux-jungle. The heat is oppressive, making every swing of his gunblade _work_, and he runs his hand across his forehead, flicking off the thin sheen of sweat that threatens to drip into his eyes.

It is a change being in here with his own weapon, one he hasn't quite gotten used to yet, even two months after the fact. Squall's decision to return his blade wasn't taken lightly, Seifer knows, even after seven years of living under the same roof, proving that he wasn't going to turn tail and run the second Hyperion was back into his possession. But for some reason, the case was waiting on his bed, no note, no explanatory phone call or email.

It had surprised him, how heavy Hyperion had become in the interim. No amount of training with inferior weapons had been able to mimic his old stance, his old dance, but when he'd taken it to the TC for the first time after it had appeared, it was like nothing had changed.

That realization _hadn't _surprised him: Hyperion is an extension of himself, modified and polished and honed to a keen, sharp edge by his hands. It has seen him through practice fights and war alike. This blade has run red with blood of monsters and blood of men.

The ground shudders underneath him. He charges through the greenery and fires, a bullet augmented with Blizzara tearing into the monster's orange flank. Its huge tail comes whipping around as the Rexaur turns, and Seifer pulls back just enough to avoid being smacked by it.

"Come on!" he yells, sneering at the beast as he eggs it on. "Fight me, you overgrown lizard!"

The Rexaur charges.

_Fight me_, _he tells a boy with dark hair and serious eyes. _

_xx_

She walks the length of the apartment once, then twice, then three times, and thinks that on the third trip around, the dimensions might have changed just a little bit.

She counts her steps backwards the next time around, but she ends up at zero, and realizes that maybe she was actually wrong.

The door chimes, indicating a visitor.

"Who's there?" she asks, pressing the intercom button with her thumb. Her nail is torn right at the edge, she realizes. She doesn't know how that happened.

It surprises her when her visitor is Quistis, so soon after their arrival at Garden. The other girl brings gifts, in the form of steaming hot coffee from the cafeteria. She hands Rinoa one of the slick styrene cups.

"I didn't put anything in it," Quistis apologizes.

"That's alright." Rinoa prizes off the lid and inspects the brew. It is dark, dark, dark brown, nearly black, with a heady, fresh-brewed scent. There are still some bubbles hovering around the edges of the cup, and she blows on the liquid gently. "Thanks."

Quistis sips her own drink and glances around at the apartment as if she has never been in here before._ Assessing all of her escape options, _Rinoa realizes. Squall does the same thing in new environments, making maps in his head.

She speaks before the awkward silence can draw out for much longer.

"Is he still angry at me?"

"Who?" Quistis asks, her eyes coming to rest on the bookshelf by the window. Most of the volumes are Squall's, thick, heavy books on military siege and tactics. There are some bright paperbacks scattered in there, their spines breaking up the monotony. "Seifer? Not really, I don't think. He...understands."

"Would you look at me?" Rinoa asks, suddenly desperate. Quistis stops mid-step forward, and _does_, her blue eyes wide at Rinoa's tone. "No one will even _look _at me. I'm not Ultimecia-" and the words are tumbling out of her now- "I'm not going to destroy the world and smash time together and _please _don't turn your back on me. Don't be afraid of me."

"Rinoa-" Quistis sets down her cup on the nearby counter, crossing to her quickly, pulling her into a gentle embrace. Her tone is the same soft sort that one would use on a frightened kitten. "I'm not afraid of you."

"You are afraid of me." There are tears stinging salty-hot at the corners of her eyes. Rinoa scrubs at them with the heels of her hands.

"I'm just a little on edge, Rin. I know you're not going to do anything stupid if you can help it."

_But you can't help it_.

It's Quistis' voice in her head, and it's _not _Quistis' voice all at the same time. Rinoa buries her head in Quistis' shoulder. Her blood sings at the undercurrent of the magic in Quistis' skin, the same sensation as the previous night, wanting, _wanting. _

_yesyesyes_

"I know," she whispers.

Something pushes out from within her gleefully, reaching for the magic close enough to touch.


	5. five

_five_

_-yes yes yes-_

The words beat like war drums in her mind, and Quistis pulls away from Rinoa with a grimace as her head pounds with the force of the thought. Something is _there_, crawling around like a centipede over her mind.

"Rinoa..." she begins warily, pressing her hands against her temples. _God_, it hurts. "Stop it."

"I'm _sorry!" _

_kill the beast, drink its blood_

_-yes yes yesyesyes-_

The pain intensifies behind her eyes. She gasps and stumbles back against the counter, scrabbling for purchase against the ache. Her hand smacks into Rinoa's open coffee cup, and it falls. The coffee is scorching hot against her fingers.

_-yesyesyesyes-_

(She lets it in- there's no way to stop it, and there is a part of her that accepts the sensation, accepts the power.)

-_**yesyesyes**_-

She exhales, and is distantly aware of a faint scream. _Who's making that sound_?

Rinoa is reaching for her, tears streaming down her face, and her hands are morphing- _lion's claws and a bull's horns and she will tear you to shreds with a look. _

Quistis says something- _I have to go_- and it is only when she is out of the apartment, all the way down the hall that the pain behind her eyes abates just the tiniest fraction, replaced by the agony in her hand.

They are running out of time.

_xx_

"Don't turn on the light," Quistis mumbles the second Seifer steps into the bedroom later that afternoon. Her voice is strained, like just speaking is painful.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

There is a rustling of blankets as she burrows deeper into the pile she has created, even though it's not at all cold in here. She doesn't answer his question, though, and he makes an effort to tread lightly across the room. When he emerges from the bathroom after his shower, she is still in exactly the same position, huddled against the wall.

The bed depresses under his weight as he sits on the edge, and the springs give off a faint squeak that elicits a whine of protest from Quistis.

"Sorry," he murmurs. The pile of blankets shrugs. "I take it you don't want to come to the caf for lunch, then."

"Shut _up_."

He throws on a pair of sweatpants and a clean t-shirt and leaves her to her silence and her darkness.

The caf is bright and noisy in sharp comparison; he's arrived just after lunch rush, so there isn't much of a line. He grabs a tray and piles some food onto it- a hamburger wrapped in foil, a salad in its own little pristine, lidded cup, a bottle of water- swipes his card at the register, and scans the room for familiar faces. There are two, he discovers- Fujin and Raijin have occupied one of the far corner tables and he shoves his way past a group of first-years who go quiet at his approach, like they're going to get into trouble for giggling.

"Hey, boss," Raijin says. It's strange how stubborn Rai is- Seifer isn't the leader of some posse anymore, looking to stir up trouble and write up cadets for no reason, but the nickname has stuck since they were all thirteen, and will stick around until they're all dead, probably. "No better half?" he asks, craning his neck to see if Quistis might still be waiting in the queue.

"Nah, she opted out of eating, apparently." Seifer unwraps his burger; come to think of it, he can't actually remember the last time he's seen Quistis eat _anything _in the past couple of days, outside of sucking down vats of coffee, and that doesn't actually count as nutrition. Huh.

"Esthar?" Fujin asks. She's done away with the wigs and most of the makeup, compromising by dyeing her hair a dark brown and wearing colored contacts to make her blind-white eye seem almost normal. It's a bit disconcerting at first glance; it took Seifer a long time to be able to look at her straight on after the change. If it hadn't been for that mission in Galbadia, the one that legitimately killed Selphie and Irvine and had Fujin declared dead for about ten minutes, she wouldn't have to do this at all. But Deling City's drug lords are notorious, and a silver-haired, half-blind pale girl is memorable. She has a headstone in Garden's cemetery, marking the final resting spot of an empty box.

"Fine." Seifer shrugs. "We survived."

"Rinoa?"

"Crazy as ever." He takes a bite of his hamburger, chews, swallows. "Maybe crazier."

"That's the rumor mill, y'know," Rai comments. "She's losing it."

Seifer grunts around a mouthful of burger, noncommittally. Fujin wisely changes the subject to the Triple Triad regional tournament, and the rest of the meal passes in mostly small talk.

When Seifer leaves, he takes the unopened salad with him.

_xx_

"Again," Squall says.

"This vial," the scientist points out, "then this one. Then this one. One at a time."

Squall nods, and the entire bundle is folded up in a neat container for him, sealed in a biohazard bag that he is instructed not to open until he absolutely has to.

-_i'm sorry sorry__** sorrysorrysorry**_**-**

He catches a ride on a cargo transport to Balamb. It takes an eternity, and all the while, Rinoa's thoughts are beating hard in his head, an ache deep inside his mind that will never, ever abate.

_xx_

She has moved, just a little bit, when he walks in after his lunch, slumped on their narrow sofa, a mug of tea in hand, steaming hot and smelling of mint. Her hand still aches, but the pain behind her eyes has dulled down from war-drum to light thud. The tea is helping; the aspirin helps slightly more.

"Ah," he says. "You live."

"More or less."

Seifer holds out one of the salads from the caf, and when Quistis doesn't move to take it, he sets it on the coffee table. "It'd probably help if you ate something."

"Thanks, but I'm not hungry." She shifts her legs a little, just enough so that he can sit down, then she puts her feet in his lap. He raises an eyebrow at her.

"Comfortable?"

"Eh." She shrugs, and he snorts, taking one of her feet in hand and squeezing gently, eliciting a sigh of pleasure from her. Quistis settles back against her pile of pillows and sips her tea. The warmth of her drink and the feel of his hands is a soothing combination.

Seifer glances at the bandage wrapped around her knuckles. "What did you do? Get into a fight with a Trepie?"

"Not exactly," she replies. "Spilled some coffee." She drains the rest of her tea and sets the mug next to the salad.

He works his hands down to her heel. Quistis closes her eyes, losing herself in the sensation, and doesn't really know how much time passes before she dozes off.

_(Kill the beast and drink its blood. The red queen laughs, and the sky explodes.)_

She jerks upright, dislodging one of the pillows behind her as she catches herself on the edge of the couch before she slips to the floor.

"What?" Seifer's hands stop moving. He is staring at her, his expression confused. "What's wrong?"

Something roils in her stomach, and Quistis can't answer him. She flees, narrowly making it to the toilet before she heaves up a foul mixture of coffee and tea and little else. The tile is cold beneath her knees; she holds fast to the toilet seat, gasping.

_-i'm s-s-s-s-orrrrry-_

Seifer is there behind her, saying something she can't understand, his hand solid against her back, warm through her thin shirt. Somewhere down the hall, she knows that a woman is crying, and she doesn't know _how _she knows that.

_-the feeling of something crawling over her mind, not a centipede this time, but something sharp, something digging into her very being-_

She gets to her feet slowly, holding onto the edge of the sink, her honed muscles betraying even the simple command to stand up straight. When she catches her reflection in the mirror, her eyes are wide and more black than blue.

She breathes. In, out. In, out.

_(you have no choice.)_

_xx_

She dreams of the void, of folding it upon itself, until she has nothing more than a square of dead space in her hands. She wakes shaking and gasping and _knowing_.

Somewhere, a woman is crying.

Somewhere, a witch is laughing.

Somewhere, there is the beating of a young man's heart, and it is getting closer.

Rinoa curls into a smaller ball in the corner of their big, big bed, inhaling air and exhaling a silent scream. Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere.

She is _everywhere_, and she is going mad with it.


	6. six

_six_

Xu straight-arms him in the chest before he can make it into the dormitory wing of Garden.

"_What_?" He can feel Rinoa, just there, just out of his reach, and Xu is stopping him for something pointless. This can wait. Everything can wait, except for _her. _

"Where the hell have you been?" Xu's tone is deadly level. She is not annoyed. She is far, far beyond annoyed, and he sincerely hopes she isn't junctioned. Her words ring with superiority, with an air of command.

-_come and find me-_

But she is not in command, _he _is, and he does not have to explain himself to her. He shoves her hand out of the way. "Xu-"

-_i'll be waiting-_

She glares at him. "Oh. I'm sorry. Let me rephrase: Where the hell have you been, _Commander_?"

She looks _ridiculous_, standing there in the hall with her self-righteous look and her hands on her hips. It angers him, a bright hot knot building in his chest. "I had something to take care of," Squall says, and moves to go past her. Xu is quick, though, cutting off every escape route he attempts. "Xu, seriously."

"No. I won't move and I won't go away until you explain to me just what the hell you thought you were doing."

"_Lieutenant_," he snaps. "Get out of my way." He doesn't want to say it, but she is the most stubborn person he knows, and he will say whatever it takes to get past her. "That's an order."

"_No_."

The word, and the force with which she says it, shocks both of them for a second.

Xu is the first to recover. "I'm sorry, sir, but you left an unstable Sorceress in the care of unqualified individuals in Esthar, and took off completely without word or warning. A day? Sure. Two days? Pushing it. A _week_, completely without communication of any kind, gone _completely _off the grid except to tell me to dispatch SeeDs to baby sit your wife, and then you show up without warning, expecting me to just _look the other way_? The Council couldn't even find you. We thought you were dead!"

-_promise?-_

_"Enough!" _he roars; his voice is so loud that several cadets walking down the hall toward them actually stop and backtrack a few steps. He doesn't care if he terrifies every cadet in the building. That's _it. _"I'm in command. You _aren't_."

She narrows her eyes at him, fury radiating off of her in waves. "Perhaps," she says, biting off every syllable, "you shouldn't be. Sir."

He wants to hit her, worse than he's wanted to hit anyone in his life. "You're confined to quarters," he says, and he has to fight to keep his voice controlled. "Say that again, and it's the brig."

Her eyes are wide for just a half a second, cracks in her hard exterior. Just as quickly, she composes herself. She always was his best undercover operative. "You should know that I've already submitted my report to the ICGI."

_At least she has the guts to look me in the eye when she stabs me in the back. _

Squall grabs the nearest SeeD- there are an alarming amount of them in the dormitory wing, but he doesn't have time to wonder about that now. "See Lieutenant Chang to her quarters, and ensure she doesn't leave."

She does not give him the satisfaction of turning to look at him as she is led away.

_-promise me you'll come find me-_

Squall pinches the bridge of his nose, hard, trying to fight the headache throbbing behind his eyes. He can feel the eyes of every cadet in the hall upon him, and he ignores them all as he stalks past them.

-_promise me. _

_xx_

She is waiting in the courtyard between the cafeteria and the dorms. The place is nearly empty except for her; it will be at least an hour before the last of the cadet classes let out for the day. For now, she is alone, save for her ever-present guardians, SeeDs assigned by Xu to watch her.

_(we just want to keep you safe.)_

Rinoa studies her feet, bare against the green, green grass. The polish on her toenails is chipping. She traces the cracked edge of the polish, again and again, losing herself in the rhythmic disorder of it.

"Rinoa-"

She smiles, something she hasn't been able to do in days. "I told Quistis you wouldn't leave me," she says.

Squall holds out his hand. "Come on," he says, his voice weary, gruff. She has missed him _so much_, but she does not tell him this.

He stops in front of their door and turns around. There are still SeeD officers there, casting curious glances at them, but not moving.

"Xu sent them to watch me," she says quietly, and his lips thin out into a straight line. He turns, and lets go of her hand.

"_Dismissed_," he orders.

One of the officers steps forward. "Sir, Lieutenant Chang wanted us to-"

He is furious, she realizes. "I don't care what Lieutenant Chang told you. There are to be _no_ security guards in this corridor unless I order them here."

The officer nods, and salutes crisply. "Of course, Commander."

Once the door has closed behind them, Squall sets his bags down and sags bone-weary against the wall. "I'm sorry," he says. "I didn't realize- I tried to come back as soon as I could."

She slips her arms around him, her cheek against his shoulder. He rests a hand on her head, stroking her hair absently. "I wasn't afraid," she whispers.

_I was so scared. _

When he tilts her chin up to kiss her, the dark spot spreading across her chest thrums with anticipation.

She tries so very hard to ignore it.

_xx_

They are running along the beach when the sensation hits her in her core, and Quistis stops abruptly, breathing hard. Seifer pulls up alongside her- she has always been the faster of the two, no matter how much longer his legs are or how much more endurance he might have.

-_so scared-_

"What?" he asks, putting his hands on his knees as he catches his breath.

The wind off the ocean is like fingers against her skin, and Quistis doesn't properly know how to describe the feeling that so overwhelmed her for that half-beat, so she doesn't try. "Nothing," she says, and she is annoyed by how distant her voice sounds. "Just needed a second."

He nods, straightening and wiping sweat off of his brow. "Race you back? Loser buys dinner."

"At Felicia's?" It is her favorite restaurant in Balamb, and it's been a long time since she's had a chance to get off campus for something other than a mission.

"Wherever. Or Wendigo's."

"Beer does not count as food," she informs him, and takes off up toward the road, toward Balamb Garden, its bright blue paramagic ring a beacon in the early evening light.

"Cheater!" Seifer calls from behind her, but she pushes on, pouring her energy into her legs as she runs.

She is the first onto campus, charging up the short flight of steps toward the gate. "I win," she says, flashing her ID at the gate guard. Seifer jogs the last few steps up to her, the front of his shirt soaked through with sweat.

"Only because you're freakishly fast," he gasps, digging into the pocket of his shorts for his Garden identification badge. The guard waves both of them through. "You totally junctioned speed again, didn't you?"

She swats him in the arm and he catches her hand, sliding his fingers through hers as they walk through the lobby. There's a buzz of activity in the air, and Quistis raises an eyebrow as a knot of freshman cadets stop talking upon their approach, only to resume their chat in hushed whispers once they've passed.

Nida is waiting for them in front of their dorm room, pacing anxiously. "There you are!" he exclaims. "I've been looking _everywhere_ for you."

"What's wrong?" Quistis asks, punching in the code for their room. Nida follows both of them inside.

"The commander's back," Nida explains, but just as Quistis opens her mouth to comment on _that _surprising bit of news, he rushes on. "And he and Xu got into a hell of a row, _and _he's got her confined to quarters for insubordination."

"Xu?" Quistis blinks. Xu is the most loyal person she knows. There would be no way that she would- "What on earth did she say?"

"I don't know." Nida shakes his head. "I was supposed to meet her for dinner, and when she didn't show, I stopped at her dorm. There's a guard posted there, and that was all he would tell me- that she's basically locked up until Commander Leonhart says otherwise."

Seifer whistles. "Maybe she hit him."

Quistis ignores his comment, but takes the bottle of water he hands her, twisting the cap off, thinking hard. "That doesn't make any sense. Xu's done nothing but keep Garden running while he was gone. Why would he-"

_I am recording this in sound mind and body. My lieutenant, Xu Chang, is witnessing this. _

She takes off down the hall, hanging a right at the T-junction. Xu is six doors down, on the left, and if Quistis hadn't already known exactly where she was going, she wouldn't have been able to miss it. SeeD Anders is standing there, a member of her most recent graduating class.

"Instructor Trepe," he greets her, snapping into a salute before she can say anything. He looks surprised to see her.

"I need to speak to Lieutenant Chang," she says.

"The lieutenant is confined to quarters until the Commander says-"

"I _know_," Quistis interrupts him. "And you will _let me in_." She puts an emphasis on every word- if there is one thing Quistis is good at, it is the look she gives Anders, the one she has given every student of hers at least once. It inspires an immediate obedience, occasionally a great deal of fear, and on one terribly memorable occasion, the formation of a guild of stalkers.

"Ma'am." He steps aside, punching in an override code. "But if Commander Leonhart asks-"

"I'll only be a moment," Quistis assures him. "He doesn't even need to know."

Xu is doing push-ups in the middle of her bedroom, moving at a blistering pace. She's going to end up with rug-burn on her hands if she keeps it up, Quistis knows.

"Did the _Commander_," and Quistis has never heard her put so much venom in a word unless it was Seifer's name, "send you to harass me, too?"

"Xu, what did you _do_?"

Xu counts off to three hundred, and rocks back onto her knees. "All I wanted," she says, deliberately choosing her words, "was to know what the hell he was thinking. He didn't take that terribly well. I thought he was compromised, or _dead_." She moves deftly to her feet. "I had to submit a formal report to the ICGI, Quistis. After three days, I'm _obligated_. He knows that. Everyone knows that. I can't be expected to just sweep an AWOL command officer under the rug."

"You did what you had to do," Quistis says sympathetically. "But I have to ask you something. Did you tell them about the video he recorded?"

Xu looks at Quistis, long and hard. "She's severely affecting his judgment," she says. "He filed the paperwork himself. He's got an open kill order on her if she loses it or he becomes unfit to control her. What the hell was I supposed to do?"

_Burn the witch. _


	7. seven

_seven_

The shower beats down hard on her shoulders, hot water forcing tense muscles to relax, if only for a moment, but the rhythm of the water does little to ease Quistis' mind.

The International Council for Garden Institutions is not going to just wave away Xu's report, even if the commander has returned, perfectly healthy. Darker circles under his eyes, yes, but he had appeared intact when he answered the door.

("Have you decided, then? What you're going to do?"

"I don't know," he says, and she can _see _Rinoa lingering in the background, just over his shoulder. "Just- I can't do this now, Quistis."

"If not now, when?")

_When-when-when. _

The words drum against the tile floor of the shower, a steady beat. She reaches for the faucet; the silence is overwhelming and is only broken when she wrings out her long hair, sending water dripping staccato to the floor.

There's still dampness on her cheeks, and she wipes off her face with the towel.

_xx_

He dreams in fits and starts, half-remembered glimpses of figures in black and promises left unfilled, of women in red and blue. He drags Rinoa to Adel, a thousand times, a million times, an endless loop of a moment.

He dreams of a girl with white-gold hair and horns, and when she turns in her scrap of velvet dress, the witch wears Quistis' face, sharp red tears streaking down her cheeks.

_Kome,_ she whispers, and the word rattles around in his skull, even after his eyes snap open and he is staring at the ceiling instead of her face.

It's raining outside, beating against the hull of Garden with an offbeat rhythm that should be soothing. There is a thud of something, like thunder. Quistis' side of the bed is empty.

When he pads on bare feet out of the bedroom, she is sitting at the kitchen table in the darkness with her face in her hands, and he thinks she might be crying.

Seifer squeezes her shoulder gently. "You want some coffee?"

She exhales sharply, and nods into her hands. When he flicks on the light to find the filters, it throws her into sharp relief against the plain wall, her hair loose around her shoulders, her posture bowed, defeated. As he waits for the coffee pot to do its duty, he spies a square of black plastic on the floor; it's her cell phone, which explains the thud.

"No luck?"

She shakes her head, and pushes her hands through her hair, tucking some of it behind her ears. "They won't talk to me."

Seifer stirs in some cream into his coffee and half a teaspoon of sugar into hers, and carries both mugs to the table. Quistis wraps her hands around hers and stares into it.

"Maybe Leonhart'll come to his senses. Or Xu will."

She laughs, a despairing sound that dies as quickly as it escapes her lips. "Do you really think he'll give her up to Garden? Once word of this gets out, every SeeD will be after her for the glory of avoiding another Time Compression."

There is a rumble of real thunder outside, and the rain beats a harder tempo against the windows. Quistis slips out of her chair and carries her coffee to the window in the tiny living area. Seifer ambles after her, taking a seat on the couch. She watches the storm; he watches her. The next bout of thunder rattles the pictures on the wall, and he counts off four beats before the lightning explodes.

He sets his half-empty mug on the end table, then stands, crossing to her in a single long stride. She leans back against him when his arms slip around her waist. She is not fragile- she is the strongest person he knows- but he is occasionally surprised by how _small _she is, even after so many years. "We'll figure it out," he says, with more confidence than he feels. She nods, and he leans a little to press his lips against the side of her head.

_When-when-when_?

The word echoes in his head, and it isn't his voice saying it.

"What?" Quistis murmurs, and Seifer realizes that he has frozen, his arms locked around her. She twists in his grasp, looking up at him out of the corner of her eye.

He relaxes. "Nothing."

_xx_

They come in the hours just before dawn, when Squall is dozing with Rinoa in his arms. There is an old movie playing on the television, one she has seen before. It is not loud enough to mask the sound of the lock being overridden.

She has been waiting for them- she has felt them coming for a while now, walking down the hall in a tight formation. There are six of them, she knows. She does not _know _them well enough to name them.

There is a storm raging outside.

She squeezes her husband's hand, tightly, just once. It is enough- he rouses quickly, instantly awake, a habit bred of training and reflex.

"What?"

"Shh," she whispers, and he focuses on the silence, frowning as he hears them, just barely audible above the storm. Their footsteps are dulled by the carpeting that starts at the door, but they are _coming_.

He slips out from behind her, and she can feel him sorting out his magic. He has one spell left, a thunder class, no good in a tiny apartment. He calls it up anyway, and motions for her to stay still.

_Five, four, three, two-_

They burst through the door, all in black fatigues, all armed, all _coming for them. _

"Trust me," she whispers, and grabs her husband's hand. She runs for the windows, a solid glass wall, and with a silent prayer- _pleasepleaseplease-_ the glass is gone for a breath. She drags him through the hole, the soldiers on their tail, and Rinoa releases the magic just in time. There are soft pops in the air and the windows shatter.

Squall swears and ducks, stumbling as he keeps hold of her hand, but Rinoa runs, runs, _runs. _

The sea is a swirling black nightmare, waves building and cresting and erupting upon the sand. The wind whips around her face, tearing at her thin nightshirt, icicle daggers against her face.

"Wait!" Squall yells over the storm, but Rinoa drags him forward. She can hear the soldiers behind them, screaming their names, firing bullets that find only raindrops and empty space.

The knowledge is there, sitting at the back of her mind, begging to be drawn upon, and Rinoa _concentrates_ on it, harder than she's ever focused on anything in her life, and she can feel everything slow down to a crawl, melting around them.

_Trust me_.

She squeezes her eyes shut, holding Squall's hand fast in her own, and when she opens her eyes again, they are in a flower field, and the storm has stopped.

_xx_

They are nowhere, and he is _terrified_ of it

(he remembers walking, walking, walking forever)

but suddenly they are through the space between.

The silence is a shock after the storm, after screaming to Rinoa over the roar of the sea. Squall squints against the brightness, the blue, blue sky.

"Rin-"

She turns to him, the breeze sweeping her soaking wet hair back from her face, and smiles. Then her knees buckle, and Squall dives for her, catching her before she can hit the ground.

_xx_

_No!_

The sensation slams into her, and Quistis drops the mug in her hands. It thuds hard against the carpet, spilling hot coffee across her toes, but she cannot care about that now.

Seifer catches her as she sags, and she holds fast to his arms. The feeling is unbearable, _overwhelming_, and she thinks she might drown in it.

_"Quistis_!" He is calling her name, demanding to know what's wrong, what's going _on_, but all she can see is a vast blue nowhere, and she is vaguely aware that she is sobbing.


	8. eight

_eight_

The sound of her crying is a knife driven straight into his chest, a high keening that he is certain can't be coming from her. But even as he sinks to his knees under her sudden weight, keeping her close to his chest, feeling her shake in his arms, the sobbing matches up with her breathing, and Seifer _knows_.

The thing they most feared has come to pass, and somehow, somehow, Quistis is a part of it.

"What's wrong?" he demands. "Quistis, talk to me. What _is it_?"

But she has no words for him, nothing except her frantic breathing as she fights for control over whatever demon has possessed her, her exhalations a muffled sob that he eventually realizes is actually a single syllable, over and over again: _No, no, no, no._

He fumbles for something to say, some comfort, but he has nothing, and all he can do is hold onto her, until the sobbing slows. Her nails are digging into his arms, ten tiny flashes of pain. Eventually, her grip slowly lessens, and he is a little surprised to see that she's only drawn blood in one crescent indent, a narrow red streak drawn by her index finger that smears as her hand falls away.

When it seems that she can breathe again, he asks her for an explanation, hating that he can't just reach in and pluck the answer out.

"They're gone_,_"she says. and the hoarseness of her voice wraps tight around his heart.

-_slipped into the space between. _

The sharp knock on the door is almost anticlimactic, and Seifer has every intention of ignoring it, but Quistis is disentangling herself from his arms and getting carefully to her feet, scrubbing the sides of her hands against her eyes.

"You don't have to get that."

She turns to look at him, and she looks a wreck, her face pale in the storm-dawn.

"Yes, I do."

_xx_

Xu is standing there in her crisp dress uniform, not a hair out of place. "There's been a situation," she says without preamble, the second Quistis opens the door. "Get dressed."

"What the fuck did you do?" Seifer's voice is hard, giving voice to Quistis' thoughts, and she can feel him right at her shoulder, looming, his hand hovering protectively at the small of her back. His intimidation tactics have never worked well on Xu, and they certainly don't now.

Xu's expression remains neutral, her tone very nearly so. "I didn't _do _anything. The Council did. And as I am now acting commander, I would appreciate it if you obeyed a direct order for once and put some pants on. There's a briefing in ten minutes in Classroom C."

Behind Xu, Quistis can see that SeeDs are starting to file out of their dorms, murmuring amongst themselves, in various shades of dress; most still in some variation of sleepwear. There is not a cadet among them. Her friend (her commander) doesn't stick around to talk once she's delivered her message, and turns away, disappearing into the crowd. Quistis watches her until she's gone, and then thumbs the panel to shut the door.

"She couldn't command her way out of a paper bag, the bitch," Seifer mutters, and Quistis doesn't blame him for giving voice to the thought. She can only imagine the sort of stress _she's _already inflicted on him. He rakes his hand back through his hair and turns his attention back to her. "You okay?"

She doesn't know how to explain it to him, and even when she opens her mouth to try, her words fail her. "I don't know," she says finally, hating how useless that phrase is, but it is as honest as she can be. "Rinoa- she did something a couple of days ago. It's hard to explain," she adds at the expression on his face. "I... _feel_ things. Things I shouldn't. Things I _can't _know. It feels like-"

"Like something's crawling over your brain?" he says, and Quistis stops. "Like something's _there_, inside you?" He taps the center of his chest when she turns to look at him.

"How did you-"

Seifer lets out a bark of bitter laughter. "Shit, you could've _told _me. I've been there before, babe."

_(Are you a boy or man boy or man boy or man-_

_I am not a boy!)_

She remembers a television studio and Seifer in his great grey coat, swinging Hyperion with a teenager's recklessness, willing to follow Edea anywhere. To hell, if she wanted him to, her loyal, fearless knight.

_Ask Seifer. He can explain it better than I can. _

"Oh, my god," she breathes, as the pieces snap into place. It makes perfect sense when put into that context, everything right down to the pull in her gut

(_you have no choice_, the magic sings, building up in her veins, and she can smell wildflowers)

leading her off into the dark.

_xx_

Rinoa wakes slowly, the dream still clinging to her, making it hard to open her eyes, to let go of the pictures, but she does, forcing herself to blink away the last bit of sleep.

The ceiling above her is unfamiliar, exposed wooden beams set in a neat grid. The blanket covering her isn't the smooth, soft comforter, but a neat quilt done in neutral colors. The bed is softer than she's used to, and when Rinoa shifts, rolling onto her side, she can see a baby's crib.

She is alone.

"Squall?" she says, but her voice is thick and hoarse from disuse. She licks her lips, swallows, tries again. "Squall?"

He is there, just outside of her field of vision, she thinks. He is so close. He should be answering her.

There is the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and she tenses for a second before she feels him, his presence a balm against her nerves. He's there, loping around the half-wall with a practiced gait, the cup of coffee in his hands never spilling a drop.

"What's wrong?" he asks immediately.

She sits up, and her muscles protest. "I didn't know where you were."

_Liar. _

He sits on the edge of the bed, the mattress sinking a little under his weight. "Coffee," he says by way of explanation. "How do you feel?"

She takes a mental inventory quickly. "I'm okay," she pronounces. "Tired."

"You've been asleep for twelve hours."

She is surprised by that. She hasn't slept more than three or four hours a night for almost six months. But maybe she shouldn't be surprised, not after what they did. After what _she _did. "Where are we?"

He smiles, just a little. "Winhill."

The memory comes back to her, then. "Your mother's house?"

"It was the only place I could think of."

"What about_-" Soldiers, screaming, guns going off, loud, loud, loud, and she shoves time and space apart- _Rinoa flattens her hands against the quilt and doesn't finish the question.

"Nothing yet." He doesn't have to voice the rest of his thought. Rinoa can pick it out of his mind: he's a marked man and she's a sorceress, and Winhill is very near the top of the list for places Garden will check first.

"We could go back. Turn ourselves in."

"No," he says sharply. "Rinoa-"

"I know," she says, and runs her hand along his back gently. She knows about the order, about the kill contract. She knows, because he knows, and he can never keep a secret from her. It doesn't bother her as much as she thinks it should. It's what a knight does, even if he loves her, even if he marries her. The fact is that she will eventually succumb to the dark spot in her heart, and he will have to kill her.

_I won't let them hurt you._

She doesn't know, exactly, whose voice rings in her mind.

_xx_

In the sunlit ruin of the Leonharts' apartment, a cell phone rings, rings, rings, rings, rings, the vibrations causing it to bump against the edge of the nylon bag it's sitting next to. The screen lights up blue- _Trepe, Quistis_ is calling.

The ringing stops, and the phone automatically clicks over to voicemail, its default setting, broadcasting the prerecorded greeting: _"Squall Leonhart. Leave a message." _

_"Squall," _a woman's voice says, frantic. _"Squall, pick up your phone. You need to pick up your phone. Please." _

There's a long pause, the caller's breath using up a minute of recording space.

_"Call me back the second you get this. And, Squall-" _

There is a man's voice, rumbling in the background, too muffled to be picked up beyond vibrations.

_"Be careful," _the woman says finally.

There is a click, and the message saves itself to memory.

_Missed Calls: 1_, the display reads. _New Voicemail. _


	9. nine

_nine_

She shakes his shoulder; Seifer doesn't even open his eyes, just grunts and mutters, "What?"

"We're almost there."

He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and yawns, fighting off the lingering threads of sleep that tug at him. "You sure?"

"No, Seifer, I'm not. For all I know, the conductor is lying to us, and we're still in Balamb," Quistis snaps. He opens his eyes and raises one eyebrow at her. "Sorry."

"No, you're not." Seifer stretches, and covers his mouth with his hand to mask a huge yawn. Quistis hates him for it, just for a brief flash. The most sleep _she _has been able to get has been roughly ten minutes here and there, and when she _has _slept, it has been the restless myriad landscape of dreams.

She wants nothing more than to find Rinoa, violently shove all of this..._magic_ back into the other girl, and get a proper night's sleep.

That, or a cup of coffee. She could _really _use another cup of coffee. A really, really big cup of coffee. An entire carafe of coffee. Or two carafes.

The cabin is full of the perfume of wildflowers for a brief moment, her other constant companion besides the dull ache of insomnia behind her eyes. Winhill is a two-hour drive beyond the Desert Prision, the closest railway station. She has no idea why Winhill is the first place she wants to look. It's too far away to get to without a great deal of a head start, and Xu had people mobilized mere hours after the council's assault.

Xu wouldn't understand- Quistis doesn't even try to explain it. She boards a train and Seifer goes with her. There are teams sent out to every corner of the world looking for the knight and his Sorceress, and Quistis is only doing her duty. Her rank requires no backup beyond whom she chooses, and Xu does not argue with her decision. Hopefully, by the time Xu figures out where they're going, it will be too late.

_Too late for what_?

(the hangman's noose, the beheading axe, the pyre and the burning.)

The thought gives her pause as she stares out the window, at the slowing desert landscape. She spies D-District in the distance, a place that holds no fond memories for either of them. When they disembark, there's already a rental car waiting.

She drives, and does twice the speed limit the entire time.

Winhill has always been a sleepy little town, even during the war, and Quistis has not been here in seven years, but it still hits her with an aching familiarity when they cross its limits. She slows the car as she comes up behind a truck with its bed filled to the brim with tools and wood. It ambles along; she flexes her fingers against the wheel and aches to go faster.

Here, they are beyond the dust and the desert, and Seifer rolls down his windows. The scent of flowers permeates everything, even the exhaust fumes from the truck in front of them. She cannot escape it here- the flowers aren't magic. They are simply _everywhere_.

"You know," Seifer comments, "we could walk faster than this." He looks entirely too relaxed, his arm propped against the door, his chin on his balled-up hand.

"Don't tempt me," she says.

When they pull up to Squall's mother's bar, she knows they are too late, and they will find nothing but ghosts beyond its door. She parks the car and gets out anyway. She has to be sure.

Inside, the place is clean and neat, and completely devoid of life.

She climbs the stairs anyway. The light quilt covering the bed is pale, unmarked and smooth. Quistis closes her eyes and breathes in deeply, tasting magic and electricity on the air, the subtle, wild tang of flowers.

It is only when they are leaving, subdued by their first failure, that she catches the faint whiff of stale coffee on the air, and when Quistis inspects the interior of the pristine pot, she finds a single comma of dark brown liquid still at the bottom.

"They were here," she says, once she finds Seifer outside, leaning against the car.

"Where to, then?"

Quistis closes her eyes and tries to reach for the thread that brought her this far. It is thin, weak, a trail just starting to go cold.

"That way," she decides, yanking open the car door.

"Oh, good. For a second there, I was worried we wouldn't have specific directions."

It is a sore temptation to leave Seifer standing there in her dust, but she hesitates just long enough that he has time to slip into his seat. She doesn't, however, let him get his seat belt on before she throws the car into gear and roars out of the cul de sac.

_xx_

The soldiers have been here and gone again, Rinoa knows, when the boat nudges to a stop against the dock. Edea's beach is full of footsteps that do not belong to any of the orphanage's current occupants, Edea's beach is full of the stench of murderous intent.

Rinoa drifts along the shoreline, her shoes abandoned long ago, still on the boat somewhere. She doesn't need them. She's never needed them.

She could walk on water, if she wanted to.

The idea is not as impossible as it sounds, and gentle waves lap around her ankles. They were in Winhill long enough to rest and buy a change of clothes, and then she was bundled onto a little power boat in the early hours of dusk, Squall standing at the helm as he guided them into the choppy waters off of Winhill's coast. He is like a sailor from the old stories, navigating by the stars (or the expensive GPS in the boat's console.)

_Does this make me the albatross?_

She approaches the orphanage, expecting to be afraid of what she might find inside. There is no fear, however, no trepidation, hesitation. It is _Squall_ who seems to be afraid; he stops her before she can step over the threshold, a gun in his hand. The weapon looks so tiny compared to his gunblade, it is hard to believe that it can be just as lethal.

He raises a finger to his lips. _Quiet_.

She has no intentions of speaking, of calling out for Edea.

There isn't anyone here, anyway. Nothing human, anyway.

_xx_

They catch a ferry from Winhill to the Centra ruins, one of those little tourist lines that sprang up after the war. It is only a quarter filled with people, most bearing little point-and-shoot cameras that won't get them a quality photo of anything. Not that there's anything left to see, anyway; the boat tours that go around the lighthouse are far enough away to guarantee only blurry pictures. They are the last hangers-on to the Sorceress phenomenon, the last clan of thrill-seekers, the people who follow blogs and paparazzi photos and collect newspaper articles like they are mementos.

She spends as long as she can in the narrow, cramped restroom, combing her hair down around her face. For once, she's glad she isn't traveling in uniform- the last thing they need is unwanted attention drawn down upon them.

Seifer has made himself nearly invisible in a corner of the passenger lounge, and Quistis nearly walks right past him when his fingers touch her thigh, stopping her mid stride.

"Five hour boat ride, and they can't be bothered to serve coffee," he comments, shifting over to make room for her on the short bench. She sighs, and digs into her bag for her datapad, intent on sending an email to Xu, only to find that a combination of the ship and distance from the shore has left her with no signal.

She supposes it's better like that. The less she tells Xu, the less likely they'll be to beat them to Squall and Rinoa. Quistis shoves the datapad back into her bag.

_xx_

Squall enters the orphanage like they do in the movies, sweeping through the open door with his gun in front of him. She follows after a second, when nothing leaps out and attacks them. He goes through the kitchen and the living room in the same fashion, stepping over scattered dinner plates and children's toys alike.

The hallway is short and narrow, and she hears a noise in her head before she hears it with her ears.

He looks in the direction she points. Halfway down the hall, a door stands ajar. The sound is coming from within, a muffled sniffling noise that stops and starts, hiccups, catches, resumes.

They approach, Squall shielding her from whatever might be lying in wait.

The sound amplifies.

They approach.

The stench of blood finds them, copper and salt acidic in the air.

They approach.

The sound resolves in Rinoa's mind: a woman, weeping. _But there isn't anything human here_, some part of her insists, that part of her she knows to trust.

Squall stops just before the doorway, and he reaches out, carefully, so, so carefully, brushing his fingers against the door just enough to push it the rest of the way open, his hand snapping immediately back to stabilize the gun.

The room is empty at first glance, and she pushes her way into the space, disregarding Squall's hiss for her to _get back here_.

She follows the sound past the lumpy loveseat and the bookshelves full of manuals and directives, books of wars and books of fairy tales. Cid's study is in ruins, a cup of pencils strewn across the desk and the chair toppled over. The window behind the desk is shattered, and bright red streaks like a child's finger-painting are smeared across the floral wallpaper.

The weeping stops abruptly as she comes around the edge of the desk.

"Please," Edea whispers, cradling Cid's body in her hand, her dress streaked down the front with gore. "Please help him." She strokes the ruined remains of his head, smoothing down matted white hair. "He didn't know anything. He didn't know where you were." Her voice catches and exhales in a sob. "He didn't know _anything_."

Squall closes in and he is saying something, something Rinoa can't comprehend.

"Please help him," Edea says again, _but all the king's horses and all the king's men could never put Cid Kramer back together again. _


	10. ten

_ten_

The screaming explosion is what wakes Quistis from her fitful, pitiful nap.

Years of battle-hewn reflexes have her on her feet at once, braced for attack. There is a second explosion that follows close behind; it takes her a moment to realize that with the blast comes wetness against her face.

It is not a bomb. It is a storm, and they are still at sea. She relaxes, feeling the tension drain from her limbs in a rush of receding heat. The narrow shelter of the boat's cabin is barely big enough for the both of them; Seifer is laughing at her. She can see his shoulders shaking with it.

"Shut up," she mutters, fishing her glasses from her pocket and putting them on her face. They fog over instantly; she takes them off again and rubs them clear on the hem of her shirt. It doesn't help. She sighs, and looks over the bridge of them at Seifer. "How much farther?"

He gestures ahead, one hand steady on the wheel. The lighthouse is fast approaching, a gray silhouette against a rapidly darkening sky. Quistis shivers against the wind (against the tendrils of magic seeking something approaching its shores.)

"You know, we could swim faster than this piece of shit moves," Seifer comments idly. Quistis looks away from the shore at him. At first glance, he is nearly reposed at the wheel, but he holds himself carefully that way, coiled like a snake prepared to strike.

She has brought that tendency back in him; she and SeeD and Rinoa and Squall. Guilt builds up in her throat, coming out in a word, in his name, in an apology. He shouldn't have to do this twice. He should not have to follow the succession halfway around the world.

She doesn't even know how this will end.

"Seifer, I'm sorry."

He stares at her for a long time, digesting this fact, then he shrugs and spins the wheel, and they are making a beeline for the narrow dock.

_xx_

The figure waiting for them is Squall, and he greets them armed, his hand resting on the handgun at his hip. Seifer pitches him the coil of rope to moor their borrowed boat, but Squall ignores it, letting the cord fall in a pile near his feet.

"You're supposed to catch it," Seifer calls over the rush of sea and wind and rain.

"You need to go," Squall replies.

"Nice to see you, too, asshole."

Quistis leans over the edge of the boat before Seifer can think up any particularly creative insults. "What's wrong?" she asks. "Where's Rinoa?"

She knows it before Squall even answers, the tugging in her gut renewed. There, somewhere back there, in the orphanage, in the garden. Somewhere close enough to run to.

Now, why has she thought of it like that?

Squall crouches and digs the end of the line out of the pile it has created, wrapping it around a mooring point on the dock with a practiced ease, because every child of Balamb is a fisherman's child at heart, and in SeeD, nautical knots are right up there with the self-defense courses in usefulness. He doesn't answer Quistis' question, just turns and trudges back up the beach without waiting for them to follow.

"I call that as good an invitation as any," Seifer says, sliding past her to gather up his bag. He slings hers over his shoulder, too, before she can grab it; there is a tinge of annoyance that builds up at the action, but it disappears just as quickly as it has arrived, and Quistis turns her attention to climbing down the short ladder to the dock. The sea is starting to swell over the planks, and it gets in her shoes when she steps down from the last rung.

Wet socks. Wonderful.

Seifer tosses her the bags, then jumps the short descent. The dock sways under the impact; they ride the tremor for its only-seconds lifetime.

She holds out his duffel, and then they make their way in Squall's footsteps toward the orphanage.

_xx_

The teacup slips from her hand in slow-motion.

She watches it without trying to stop the event, a futile pursuit if there ever were one. The cup will shatter into a thousand pieces, irreparable. Why fumble and fail?

This event has repeated itself a hundred times across a hundred homes in a hundred city. Some news, some event, some accident, someone startling someone else. Cups fall and break and are destroyed. Universes are torn asunder, ripped from seam to seam, time is compressed, all is _forgotten-_

Her heart beats, thud, thud, _thud_, in the stillness, in the time between the drop and its inevitable end. She can hear each beat distinctly, a separate note from the previous thud, and the sound wraps itself around her, squeezing, rushing up into her ears and her head and behind her eyes-

_IWILLNEVERLETYOUFORGETABOUTME-_

Entirely too quickly comes the shatter, erupting in the stillness. She jerks back to now, blinking in confusion.

"What-" she whispers, but the word is gone in a breath. No one hears it, no one but her. She is alone. Distantly, she makes out the sound of a woman weeping.

At her feet are dozens of rose-patterened pieces of china. The handle is cast off to the side, a comma at the end of the crime scene. She crouches, reaching out for it with two fingers.

Her hand is shaking, and a sliver of ceramic bites deeply as she picks up the piece. A blossom of red bubbles out onto the white china. She stares at, transfixed by the sight of her own blood, her trembling and her voices and things that are not herself forgotten.

The door to the orphanage slams open and Rinoa drops the handle back into the mess she has created.

_Quistis. _

She rocks back on her heels, squeezing her hand against the wound. It stings with the pressure of her fist.

It is Squall who comes dripping around the corner first. He stops short at the sight of her on the floor.

"I dropped a cup," she explains, as if the china and brown splotch of tea weren't enough to describe the situation.

He nods once, his lips drawn taut. The strain of her shows all over his face and in his thoughts and in his heart, no matter how hard he tries to hide it. After seven years, Squall Leonhart has no secrets from her.

The door bangs open again, and this time it _is _Quistis, with Seifer in tow. She should be surprised. She is not.

She has known they would be coming.

Quistis looks pale and drawn, dark circles thrown into prominent relief when she steps into the light. She looks at Rinoa, and it's that simple.

The dark spot in her chest tears open with a roar, a scream that fills the air, that rivals the storm, that _becomes _the storm. It has been too long, too long since she has reached out and touched the blue magic humming in Quistis' veins, and the witch in her wants it, craves it, _needs it. _

_Draw_, she whispers, _draw-draw-draw-draw, _but it isn't her voice that comes out, it is a desperate scratchy snarl that evokes lions' paws and horns and a scrap of velvet gown.

_xx_

The only word that Quistis can think of is _assault_, because that is what this is, a horrific battery of magic digging into flesh and bone and sinew, reaching for all the spells she has stocked- the cures go first, the healing magic _always_ does- and then her elemental spells are gone, ripped out, devoured. The claws dig deeper, tearing her to shreds.

Rinoa's hands are around her biceps, grasping tightly, fingernails digging into flesh, and distantly, Quistis can hear Seifer yelling, shoving at Rinoa, trying to intervene. She feels hands on her shoulders, sees Squall pulling at Rinoa, but all the sounds are muffled, like she has been deafened by a gun's report.

There is a high keening sound that she doesn't know how to identify.

_draw draw draw draw_

She jerks and pulls and tries to free herself from Rinoa's grasp, but all she gets for her trouble are matching sets of scratches down her arms where Rinoa's nails are tearing at flesh.

_draw draw draw_

-degenerator- white wind- devour, gone.

Shiva lashes out in her mind, the frigid goddess aching to battle. Quistis surrenders, and immediately the room's temperature drops to below freezing. For a half a second, she is out of the line of fire, watching from the shadows as her guardian force, her constant companion since she was twelve, goes to battle.

Time slows, and she sees everything in excruciating detail

(Shiva sidles forward, leonine and beautiful and deadly, hands extended, and the monster that is the witch that is her friend reaches out and touches her. Rinoa whispers something, a word that no one will understand, and Shiva's eyes widen.)

and then time speeds right back up.

A chasm opens before them, a yearning void of space and time and utter darkness, and Shiva is devoured by it, her hand reaching out for her master of so many years.

Quistis lunges before she can process what she's doing, and behind her she can hear Seifer yelling for her to stop, this is _idiotic_, stop, stop stop-

She reaches, reaches, reaches, but it isn't Shiva's hand hers closes around.

_I'm sorry_, she thinks desperately, and then the darkness swallows her up.

It is a relief.


	11. eleven

_eleven_

_In the event a SeeD operative is declared missing during a mission, there is a span of thirty (30) days allowed for attempted recovery. After thirty (30) days have elapsed, the operative shall be presumed deceased..._

(SeeD Manual of Operations, Section 47, subsection 8, paragraph C.)

_xx_

_twenty-seven days later. _

Winter creeps into Balamb, running down spines like the frigid touch of a lover. Winter uniforms are issued, and the cadets are everywhere in their berets and scarves with the Garden logo so precisely emblazoned. SeeDs bundle up in goose-down parkas for missions to Trabia, where the snow has been ankle-deep for weeks already.

The sea grows rough and savage, and Balamb gets little snow, but much in the way of freezing rain. Running across the open areas of the campus is compared to dodging live fire; by the third storm, the jokes are falling flat, over-used by first years and veterans alike.

Xu rules with an iron fist, dispatching and recalling teams, issuing sentences for breach of protocol, recruiting and interviewing, promoting and demoting. Some people receive raises for the incident in Centra, some people do not. One team is immediately dispatched to quell an uprising brewing in Timber with ruthless efficiency; they do not ask questions, and they do not feel remorse.

There is a memorial held for Cid, when word is finally leaked. The rumors abound- most are outright lies and speculation, but a small knot of people know the truth. The body is already gone, somewhere in Centra- SeeD representatives bury an empty casket in the Garden graveyard.

Squall is only tangentally aware of all of this- he is present for the memorial, standing in the back in his crisp uniform. He sits in the caf with a cup of coffee in his hands and no memory of how it got there. He looks for Seifer, once, briefly, but cannot find him.

Most of his time is consumed in his darkened apartment, from which Kadowaki comes and goes, adjusting machines and medications and spells. The entire bedroom is cast in greenish light from all of the equipment brought in.

They will keep her alive until she wakes up, and then they will kill her, he knows. She is responsible for the loss of an A-rank SeeD, the ruination of a GF, the murder of men whose blood she has not shed. She is the worst kind of threat to Garden.

It is the reason they haven't removed him from the premises. An apartment is only a more comfortable prison; he is escorted everywhere now. If he fights it, he goes to the brig. There are interrogations led by Xu and Garden Council members that consume hours of time he would rather spend by Rinoa's bedside, waiting for her to open her eyes, to smile, to say anything.

Sometimes, Squall can't tell if he's seventeen or twenty-seven, if he's in black leather or rumpled sweats. Sometimes, he thinks it doesn't matter. She'll wake up, and they'll take her away from him again.

He sits in the darkness and reaches for Rinoa's pale, cool hand.

_Please. _

_xx_

There is a thudding that wakes her, a slow boom that echoes from everywhere, coming back deafening to her ears.

When she opens her eyes, there is a never-ending expanse of stars, and she doesn't understand.

_Wake up_.

The thud is her heart beating, she realizes, and as soon as she does, it quiets, becoming background noise to the nothingness around her.

_Wake up, little girl._

"Hello?"

The word comes out flat, with nothing to bounce off of. She stands, awkwardly. It is difficult to get up when there's nothing to walk on, but she finds herself upright anyway. It's Time Compression, with stars instead of clouds, and that terrifies her so much she stops for five minutes just to get the panic that bubbles to the surface under control.

Time ticks-ticks-ticks past. Her watch is stopped, hanging useless from her wrist. Time means nothing here.

"Seifer!" she calls, but just like her first word, his name is left hanging motionless in the air.

_Come this way_.

"Rinoa?"

The stars just lead to more stars, to more stars, to more stars. She does not allow herself to consider the fact that this might be death.

There's a faint distant spot of blue, and when she runs toward it, the spot solidifies itself into a figure, into Shiva. It does not take a doctor or a scientist or an A-rank SeeD to know when a god has died.

She touches her guardian force's arm, her fingers small and pink and insignificant against Shiva's skin. She doesn't know what to say. She doesn't think there are words for such a moment.

Shiva is left in the emptiness, and Quistis walks.

_This way. Closer. _

There are more things along her path- a ruined effigy of the Sorceress Memorial, a chunk of red metal that floats past her slowly, the letters G-A-L-B visible in four-foot letters. What is Galbadian refuse doing out here?

She walks.

Slowly, beneath her feet, stars give way to red brick dirt. She walks. Squall has told her about this place, so many years ago, this relentless desert. Somewhere in the distance, she thinks there might be a flower field.

She has no idea how many miles she has gone, nor how many hours she has traveled. This must be hell, Quistis thinks. This must be what is left for mercenaries when all is said and done.

Seifer figures prominently in her thoughts while she walks; for a while, she tries not to think of anything, for fear of how it will feel. The thought of leaving him alone upsets her more than being dead does, but the hurt is a welcome relief to the void, and she allows herself it.

She wanders through a cluster of massive stones, the only change in the bleak landscape. Seifer's voice is in her ear, telling her some story about getting lost in the forest with Fujin and Raijin for some training mission, how he _swore_ that this was the right way, because the map had ended up in a creek and-

Quistis cannot breathe, not with the memory, and has to pause, leaning in the shadow of a rock, inhaling ragged gasps before she can get over the sob that has lodged itself in her throat. Eventually, it passes. Panic attacks in hell- this is her eternity now.

She steps from the rock garden.

_Good, this way, yes. That's a good girl. _

Dirt begins to give way to gray stone, to fog and suffocation.

_Come this way. _

The voice is starting to make her angry, taunting, beckoning like she is a child easily swayed. She is so used to following orders, even when she might be dead.

Quistis stops, red dust puffing up around her boots, right at the line where the desert would stop completely. "Who are you?" she demands. "What the hell do you want with me?"

She expects no answer.

_You are an empty vessel. _The words come from all around her, tearing at her hair and skin. _You are nothing without your demons. _

"I don't know what you're talking about."

_Let me in, let me show you what it's like to be able to draw from nothing, to weave magic you cannot even begin to comprehend. _

The words are insistent, pushing at her skin, prodding for weaknesses, for flaws and cracks.

"No," she whispers, because it all falls into place then. Rinoa's Draw assault, Squall's kill order. Seifer- _Seifer_- watching her, because he knows what's going on. He's been through all of this before. Following Rinoa around the world like a dog looking for its master. The song of blood and magic-

Dimly, she hears the click-clack-click of claws against stone, and there's a cold spot in her chest.

_The succession must always continue_, the voice croons in her ear, as seductive as a lover, but the words are twisted and horrible, the consonants harsh.

The ice in her chest expands and explodes and Quistis is as defenseless as a child from it. This time, she is painfully aware that the screaming is coming from her throat.

_The succession must always kontinue. _

_xx_

Seifer sits at the edge of the ocean, waves lapping just up to the toes of his boots, and stares at the moon, cold and heavy in the sky. Somewhere across the sea is an island and a lighthouse and a witch.

Garden is to his back, with its own witches and ghosts.

In two days, they are going to declare Quistis Trepe dead. In two days, he will be given another month of being able to avoid Xu and the council. They call it bereavement leave, and he will probably eat a bullet.

There is the soft crunch of sand behind him.

"Piss off," Seifer snaps, without bothering to see who it is. Any patience he once had with people is gone, sucked up into a sorceress' void.

"No." Fujin's voice is even, calm. She comes to sit next to him, allowing a foot of space.

He shoves his hands deeper into the pocket of his coat, hunching against the wind. "I don't feel like talking, Fuj."

She shrugs. "Okay," she says, and pulls something out of her pocket, a metal flask that glints in the moonlight. Fujin unscrews the lid and takes a sip before passing it to him.

Seifer doesn't even ask what it is, just tips it back and drinks. Galbadian whiskey feels like a punch to the gut, and then a soothing warm compress- something in him untangles just a little with the heat of it.

Fujin reaches across the space between them, and puts her hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry," she says once, simply.

He doesn't know how to explain to Fujin how much he misses Quistis, how it leaves him mangled and raw and sleepless with loss, so he doesn't try. A nod is all he manages.

She leaves him to his grief, and Seifer spends a long time in conference with the contents of the flask before he thinks he can face the dorm room. The walk up the beach seems to take a hundred times longer.

He makes it home, to an empty, silent apartment, and doesn't remember falling asleep.


	12. twelve

_twelve_

_Seifer-_

_Seifer- Sei-_fer_- Sei-FER.  
_

_He hears drums_, _a discordant beat, his name against rawhide, slammed down over and over again. Seifer-Seifer-Seifer. _

_Something is waiting for him along the jungle line, an army of monsters and warriors and things with claws and teeth that go snicker-snack. _

_Seif-er, Sei-fer, Sei-fer. _

_She comes out of the jungle, horns and wings and claws, a vengeful goddess in a glittering gown of peach and black, blonde hair long and tangled and whipping around her in a halo. _

_He watches her advance, her steady, sultry gait. Hyperion is heavy in his hand, slick with the blood of hundreds, all he has been forced to cut down just to find her. It is dripping in a pool around his feet, and he shifts, his boots sticking in the red. The stench of it burns in his nose- _

_She is in front of him, and she is beautiful._

_"Seifer," she whispers, twining her arms around his neck. "Seifer." _

_There are footsteps all around them, moving closer, but Quistis is kissing him then, her lips cold, tasting of agony and glory all at once. Hyperion falls from his hands, clanging to the ground at his feet, and the monsters continue to advance. _

_xx_

He wakes in a tangle of sheets and sweat, feeling the phantom tang of lips and hands and skin. Seifer shoves off the blanket and sits up. His shirt is twisted, tangled around his torso- he peels it off and casts it aside. It is too hot.

The window sticks; he fights it open, shoving his head out into the cold pre-dawn air. He breathes in deeply, fighting off the vestiges of the dream. Scraps of it don't go, though. Quistis' eyes, bright electric blue, wild, feral.

When he breathes, he is reminded of her kiss. Seifer draws his head back indoors.

_Less than forty-eight hours_, he thinks. Maybe today he'll go sign out a gun from the armory.

He leaves the bedroom for the kitchenette, for coffee as hot as he can make it, sliding through the ritual of brewing it in only moments, not waiting for the coffee maker to finish percolating before he has poured the first cup.

The sun is rising through the picture window in their small living room. He watches it for a long while, drinking away the acidic aftertaste of Fujin's whiskey.

_Seifer_.

Her voice echoes in his head. He tightens his grip on the mug and drinks, abandoning the darkness of the kitchen alcove to stand closer to the window.

_Seifer_.

"Shit," he murmurs, and sets the mug down on the little end table harder than he'd intended. There is a beige throw blanket on the couch, and with the clink of ceramic on wood, the blanket moves.

He stumbles back, startled, knocking against the window. "What the _fuck_?"

The blanket is pushed aside, slowly, and a blonde head rises up from a nest of throw pillows, hair matted and tangled, blinking.

His heart stops.

"Seifer..."

Her voice is weak, broken, nearly impossible to hear. She slumps back against the pillows, her bare, pale skin pearlescent in the early morning light. Her glasses are missing, and she is as naked as the day she was born.

There are a thousand questions that he should be asking, but she is _here_ and she is _alive_ and Seifer is pretty sure this is what a heart attack is, because his has resumed beating so wildly it should by all rights blow up in his chest.

She moans, her eyes rolling up in narrow slits to seek him out. He is on his knees by her immediately, slipping his hand through her tangled mat of hair until his fingers land on her pulse. It's weak, too weak, and her skin is like ice.

Frantically, he wraps the blanket around her, gathering her in his arms. She is light, so light, a doll with her limbs askew. Quistis rolls her head against him, burying her face against his chest, hiding away from the light, whimpering at his touch.

Seifer doesn't remember leaving the room, only that he finds himself at a dead run through Garden, Quistis in his arms, and he thinks he's saying something, _help, someone help_, and then he's skidding down the hall outside the infirmary, and Dr. Kadowaki is _there_, the most welcome sight ever. It's hard to put Quistis down on the bed Kadowaki indicates- what if she disappears just as suddenly as she's returned?- but he forces his grip to relax. Kadowaki tosses the blanket at him, and he digs his fingers into it- it's something to do with his hands-

Quistis looks so small there, so fragile under the bright lights, all of her scars illuminated- the one across her abdomen from a fight in Deling she doesn't remember much of, one above her left breast, received in training, all the faded nicks and scratches she doesn't recall getting.

But there is something new, faint blue striations spattered across her cheeks like she's been frozen for a long time. The same pattern creeps up her arms and across her collarbone, around her neck.

"What's wrong with her?" he asks, and his voice is panicked, pitched, scared. Any other time, he would be embarrassed, but not now. Not when it's _her_.

Kadowaki draws a thin white sheet over Quistis, tucking it around her torso so that intravenous lines can be inserted. "I don't know," she says, but that's not _good _enough, she's a _doctor_, she has to know something, has to know how Quistis, missing for a month, has ended up in the living room, sleeping on the couch. Has to _know_ why she's so cold, why she's so... blue.

The doctor has no answers, though, and preps an IV bag. She gently lifts Quistis' hand to insert the line. The second the needle punctures skin, Quistis shoots upright against the bed, and she is screaming wildly, thrashing, clawing at the line in her arm, and Kadowaki is yelling something at Seifer, instructions he follows blindly.

She fights him, too, digging at his sides as he wraps her in a bear hug, pinning her arms down, _calm down_, it's okay, _just relax_, but he can feel the hum of electricity running under her skin. The hair on his arms stands straight up on end, and it's the only warning he gets before the thunder spell sends him flying across the room, crashing into the side of Kadowaki's desk, shoving the whole assembly into the wall with a massive splintering sound.

"_Shit_!" he gasps, clutching at his chest, his ears ringing. The scent of burnt hair is in the air, and Quistis is staring at him in horror from against the wall, breathing hard, tears streaking down her face.

It's hard to breathe; Seifer thinks he might've cracked a couple of ribs. He wheezed like this the last time that happened, too. He closes his eyes for a second against the pain.

"_No_," Quistis gasps, and in two strides she is by him, reaching but not touching. He flinches away as her hands skate along his ribs, and regrets the motion. "Oh, god, I'm _sorry_- I don't know how-"

_Fuck_, his chest hurts.

"I'm sorry," she says again and again, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't know what's happening to me-"

Her face is so close to his, her breath soft against his skin, and he has so many memories of better moments like this, without the blue etched across her face, in whorls around her eyes and spiderwebs across her cheeks.

"I'm okay, I'm fine," he says, reaching for her hand just to still her movement. The lie hangs in the air between them, broken up only by Quistis' choked sobs as she slumps in front of him, hair hanging around her altered face.

Security arrives, too late for any action, their footsteps reverberating against the tile floor. Seifer squeezes Quistis' hand, leaning his head back against the ruined desk, and closes his eyes against the whole scene.

_Seifer_, she whispers in his ear_, come with me, Seifer. _

_xx_

In a dark room at the far end of Garden, Rinoa Heartilly opens her eyes.


	13. epilogue

_epilogue_

There is a small, square black case that is kept under lock and key in Xu's desk. It is, formally, evidence in the trial against Rinoa Leonhart- informally, it is the way out of this whole mess. Rinoa will stay asleep for only so long, and if the reports are right about the contents of the case, there may even be a way to avoid a firing squad.

Xu has to respect her former commander, just a little, for being so steadfast throughout this latest turn- she would have expected him to be fetal in a corner somewhere. If she were in his shoes, she might very well be. Very little in life is harder than knowing someone you love is going to die, but he issued the order that would end his wife's existence; she will not do him the dishonor of redacting it. Not now. Not when there's so much at stake and Quistis is missing.

She presses a series of numbers on the keypad, a complex combination that would take even Garden's supercomputers days to break through. The safe slides open with a hiss, and Xu lifts the heavy case out carefully. There is a heavy-duty zipper wrapped around the edges; it parts as smoothly as butter when she opens it.

The light from her desk lamp glistens off of the glass vials nestled in their foam bed. Red, orange, green.

Red, orange, green.

She touches each one gently, tracing the smooth, gently rounded curve of the glass. The needles are massive, designed to puncture through the toughest skin, four inches long and capped in thick plastic.

It would be so easy. Red, orange, green. Leonhart leaves his dormitory occasionally, long enough to eat or train or, hell, get piss drunk. There are so many options to make him leave Rinoa's side. An interrogation, a follow-up interview, a psychiatric evaluation, and god knows he could stand to have his head examined.

Red, orange, green.

She lifts one of the syringes out of the case, wondering at the weight of it. This must have cost Leonhart a fortune, not that he doesn't have the money. The researchers at Deep Sea are just as mercenary as Garden is, only they're in it for the science and the gil, not the bloodshed that will come of it.

Red-

She sets the first needle down, grazes her fingers across the second.

Orange-

She wonders what the effects would be, giving Rinoa this much serum with the current cocktail of drugs running through the young woman's system. It wouldn't be anything good.

It would be so simple, to call Leonhart away from his wife and put an end to the misery. Maybe he would even volunteer to do it himself. He was going to, anyway, or at least try to. Xu isn't sure he quite has the nerves of steel he used to.

The green needle is thinner than the others, roughly half the circumference. The needle is just as large as the others, however. This would be the most dangerous part, she imagines, once it is figured out what is happening. Once the serum starts taking over the magic, and there is only raw, violent power, a final atomic burst-

_That's poetic_, she thinks. Xu is not one for poetry, unless it is on the battlefield, and this is battle of the finest kind. This is Garden's mission. This is what they were built for. Cid Kramer would appreciate it, even now, his body worm food at the hands of the very soldiers he had bred and raised.

It's funny how that works out.

Xu watches the way the light glints off the edge of the needle, appreciating its flash and flare, frowning when her phone rings. She sets the needle back in the case, and takes a moment to close up the entire assembly, locking it back into her desk before she snatches up the handset.

"Yes?"

She listens, and she does not believe the words that she is hearing. This is impossible.

This changes _everything_.

"I'll be there immediately," she snaps. "Don't do anything until I tell you to."

She takes the stairs two at a time, flying down them until she bursts through the door at the end of the first floor stairwell, slowing as she hits the hallways, because appearance is everything in command, and she will not have this getting out of hand before she has even gotten a proper situation report. Xu smooths down her skirt around her knees and ensures that her tie is centered before she makes the final turn.

The air in the hallway leading to the infirmary stinks of Thundaga, and someone is weeping.

_xx_

_To be continued in Civil War. _


End file.
